ATLANTA -- The sight of Roy Halladay going from a dominator to a scuffler in one year was surreal.

His first start of 2013, however, took surreality to a new dimension Wednesday night.

Facing a Braves team made to mash and strikeout, Halladay was both a victim and benefactor of Atlanta’s collection of hackers.

The problem with experiencing both the Braves’ assets and warts is that the positive tends to make the negative moot. While Halladay had an unprecedented outing in which he struck out all but one of the batters he retired, he also allowed nine of the 19 batters he faced to reach base, including home runs by Justin Upton and Evan Gattis, as the Braves swamped the Phils, 9-2, at misty Turner Field.

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The opening two words out of his mouth in the clubhouse after the game summed it up.

“I’m frustrated,” Halladay said, a mix of weariness and anger in his tone.

The theme for Halladay was much like his experience in spring training: His cutter just isn’t the out pitch it used to be.

Halladay lasted just 3 1/3 innings, needing 95 pitches and allowing five runs. However, he struck out an amazing nine batters, seven on swings, and only recorded a batted out when Juan Francisco tapped out to first to end the third inning. A search of Baseball-Reference.com’s statistical library revealed no recorded instance of a pitcher striking out nine of the 10 batters he retired in an outing.

The problem is that unless a relief pitcher were to do it, lasting just 3 1/3 innings doesn’t bode well for a starter.

In Halladay’s mind, the hits and runs are almost of a side concern -- and there is something to be said for the fact that between his last two spring starts and this outing a preposterous percentage of ball put in play are falling for hits. The most unpalatable thing to him, the thing that bruises his pride the worst, is the fact that he can’t seem to survive half a game, let alone think about going the distance.

“I should have gotten deeper than that,” he said. “I wasn’t aggressive enough early in the count and went deep counts, and that’s the most frustrating part, really.

“I’d rather get beat 20-0 and pitch eight innings than pitch 3 1/3.”

Halladay actually had the best velocity of 2013 in the opening inning, throwing his fastball and cutter in the 90-92 mph range. The problem is that on the whole, it isn’t fooling hitters. It certainly didn’t fool Upton, who crushed a two-strike cutter for a two-run homer in the first inning.

What Halladay did have working was his off-speed pitches. All seven of his strikeouts of position players came on swings, and all but one were with curves and changeups.

The problem is that a pitcher can’t survive by junk alone. Halladay needed 40 pitches to make it through the first inning, an arduous frame that included two walks to go with three strikeouts.

“I was just trying to be too picky, too fine,’’ Halladay said. “Last year, feeling the way you do (debilitated by a sore back), you think ‘I can’t throw an 86 mph fastball to a general zone, it’s going to get hit.’ So you get to the point where you start to get picky.

“I’m getting to the point where I’m building arm strength and it’s continuing to grow every time I pitch, so I can start opening things up and not try to be so fine -- which is what I’ve always done. I’ve always relied on movement and not tried to pick sides of the plate. And there were times where we were picking corners of the plate. I need to open it up and let the movement take care of itself. But the arm strength is a key to that and continues to build. I think that’s something I can start widening.”

After working scoreless (but not easy) innings in the second and third, the fourth inning started with Gattis -- the country-strong Cinderella story of the Braves who quit baseball for four years after high school, only to mash his way onto the opening-day roster -- hitting a towering home run for his first big-league hit. After Halladay got Maholm looking for his eighth strikeout, Andrelton Simmons laced his 95th pitch for a single and that sent Charlie Manuel to the mound to get the right-hander.

The decision didn’t sit well with Halladay. Then again, even as the effectiveness of his cut-fastballs has diminished, what has not waned is the veteran’s self-belief.

Before the game Manuel said Halladay not only was against pushing his first start back for Kansas City at home over the weekend, but was a little ticked that he wasn’t the opening-day starter.

“You were asking me the other day if I thought about switching him,” Manuel said. “I said something to him about it. ‘How do you feel? Are you ready to pitch?’ He said, ‘Yeah. I wanted to to pitch the first game but you didn’t want me to.’

“That was a good answer. That was all right. That’s the kind of answer you like.”

What Manuel and the Phillies needed more was a less questionable performance.

The hitters didn’t come to the rescue on this night. Catcher Erik Kratz had a particularly rough night, as three straight plate appearances he left two runners on base with nothing to show for it. The Phillies also got a rough break in the seventh when, after Chase Utley laced a two-run double to right to cut Atlanta’s lead to 7-2, Michael Young hit a dribbler on which the throw to first hit him in the leg.

Utley would have scored on the play with Domonic Brown (two hits) coming to the plate, but home-plate umpire Marty Foster ruled Young had interfered, even though replays didn’t show an obvious breach of the base line.

The focus, however, remains on Halladay, whose next start comes Monday at home against the Mets.

“I feel like the progressions has been there, the results haven’t, and that’s frustrating.” he said. “But I feel like they are going to come. I want them to come sooner than they have and I’m pushing for them to come sooner than they have and sometimes that’s part of the problem.”